Tents or awnings are common leisure products prepared for outdoor use. However, as for a relatively large tent or awning, it requires several persons to unfold the tent or awning successfully due to its bulky size and heavy weight. Accordingly, various supporting structures have been designed to facilitate unfolding the tent or awning.
To solve the defects of an existing tent folding and unfolding mechanism, such as complicated parts and the scattered mechanism, the applicant has invented a mechanism disclosed in the Chinese Utility Model No. CN203034904. As shown in FIG. 1 and FIG. 2, a tent top folding and unfolding mechanism is disclosed, including a connecting seat 1′, a sliding seat 2′ that is flexibly disposed on the connecting seat 1′, and an elastic adjustable member 3′. The elastic adjustable member 3′ may be a spring or a cylinder. The middle portion of the connecting seat 1′ extends downward to form an accommodating seat 12′ for accommodating the elastic adjustable member. A sinking seat 21′ whose outer diameter is greater than an outer diameter of the accommodating seat is formed at the upper portion of the sliding seat 2′. A bolt rod 7′ successively passes upward through the sliding seat 2′ and a lower end of the accommodating seat 12′ from below the sliding seat, and is connected to a bolt cap 4′ in a locked manner after passing through the elastic adjustable member 3′. The circumference at the lower portion of the sliding seat 2′ is also provided with a pivotal connection slot 22′, where the pivotal connection slot 22′ is used to be pivotally connected to one end of a connecting rod 6′ for supporting a tent top rod 6′, and the other end of the connecting rod 6′ is pivotally connected on the tent top rod 5; additionally, a fixing portion 23′ is formed at a lower end of the sliding seat 2′ to connect a tent cloth.
The accommodating seat 12′ is provided on the connecting seat 1′, so that the elastic adjustable member 3′ is accommodated in the accommodating seat 12′; moreover, by means of the bolt rod 7′ and the bolt cap 4′, the elastic adjustable member 3′ can be compressed and the sliding seat 2′ is driven to move up and down, and by means of the connecting rod 6′, the sliding seat 2′ further drives the tent top rod 5′ to fold and unfold, thereby achieving the function of assisting in folding and unfolding a tent.
The aforementioned tent top folding and unfolding mechanism is concise and simple in structure, and desirable in appearance integrity. However, in the aforementioned tent top folding and unfolding mechanism, there is a countersink at the top portion of the connecting seat, and therefore, the structure is not beautiful; moreover, if sundries fall into the countersink at the upper portion, use of the tent is affected, and practicability is undesirable.